Another semester starting
Published on Jan 14, 2008 at 11:46 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under college teaching.
Well, the break is over. Another semester is starting. Today is the first day of class at my college. The parking lots are jammed. They are doing construction that was supposed to be finished over the break, but it is nowhere near done, and so a significant number of student parking spots are no available. There are some spots on the far side of campus, but students don’t want to park there, so they park in faculty spots. I managed to get lucky and get the last available faculty parking spot today.
I feel already behind, since I was at the AAS conference all last week instead of getting ready for classes. The meeting was good, and there were a lot of things there to get me fired up, but I need time to prepare for classes, too. Fortunately, I’ve taught all of the classes that I am teaching this semester before. That helps. But, I like to update lectures for each semester, particularly for astronomy. I think that I spend more time on each of my courses than most of my students do.
Oh, and the student emails have already started. I have had a flurry of emails from students asking what books they need to buy, what readings they need, and what they will be missing since they will be gone the first week. Of course, none of them tell me what class they are taking!  I teach more than one.
-Astroprof
Ole Phat Stu on January 14, 2008 at 1:01 pm: 1
There are US colleges where the/a correct answer would have been “the Bible” regardless of which class they were taking
Steven Long on January 14, 2008 at 8:01 pm: 2
Welcome back to the mess! Both of my instructors were switched on me at the last minute! I signed up for two specific classes to be taught by specific instructors, only to have them swapped out the week before class! Does this happen at universities, or just underfunded local colleges?
Astroprof on January 14, 2008 at 10:28 pm: 3
It happens all through academia. I have even seen graduate classes switched around at the last minute.